But despite it all, Obama is still liberals’ president, and they don’t want to see him go. They just want him to be better. “Sometimes I worry he’s beginning to lose sight of the people who elected him,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Added Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who opposed the Summers nomination:”It’s important for the White House to get that kind of feedback.”

By opening a left flank, progressives say they’re actually helping Obama in terms of his negotiating position with Republicans, because it allows him to look more reasonable when he comes to the center. “It’s a tactical issue,” said Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt. There’s a “constructive tension” between the liberal bloc and the White House, he said, but “we work together hand in glove with the president.”

The liberals realize there’s only so much the president can do, given the inflexible Republican opposition. “We all have to understand that you could have a president who combines the best qualities of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy, and there would not be enough gravitational pull from that person to bring [House Speaker] John Boehner and company into Earth’s orbit,” Welch said. “A lot of us in the House are ready to pick up the battering ram and just try to bust through and make progress, but we just don’t have the votes.”

So to the Left, it’s not an insurrection, it’s an intervention: Sit down, Mr. President. We’ll put some coffee on.